Gender-role preference matters: How family policy dissemination affects marriage/fertility intentions

Abstract

Despite a wide range of family policies, marriage and fertility rates in Japan remain very low among developed countries. Drawing on data from a national survey experiment, this study aims to examine whether dissemination of existing family policies can increase marriage and fertility intentions of Japanese young individuals and whether the effect depends on their gender-role preferences. The results show that informing and/or reminding respondents of the existing family policies can significantly increase their marriage intention, but not their fertility intention. Moreover, the effect on marriage intention is moderated by their gender-role expectations for future spouses. Specifically, the policy information effect is more pronounced among women who expect a relatively equal share of financial responsibilities and among men who expect their future wives to assume the primary housework responsibilities. This suggests that although existing family policies may lower marriage costs for economically independent women, the same policies could potentially exacerbate domestic gender inequalities and women's work-life conflicts by helping less domestically engaged men enter into marriage. Overall, these findings contribute to the feminist literature on gender and family by highlighting the potential consequences of family policies on the pre-marriage mechanisms of domestic gender inequalities and calling for actions to change men's traditional gender ideology.